Joyce Summers, White Lighter
by J. Maria
Summary: There's more meaning to her death, and Joyce gets a taste of having her own destiny.  Part 2 of the Resurrected 'verse, sequel to Hank Summers, Dark-Hunter?  BtVS-Charmed-Glee-SPN x-over.
1. Into: Feels Like Today

Title: Joyce Summers, White-Lighter  
Author: Jmaria  
Rating: FR-13  
Disclaimer: Joss owns dear Joyce, Spelling & Co. own the White-lighters, I own Sheyle.  
Summary: There's more to her death than meets the eye. All she has to do is make the choice.  
A/N: So I never really watched much after the season when Paige was introduced (the convenience of it all irked me at the time, though I did watch it in reruns later on) so I missed a lot of the 'how White Lighters are made' bit. From what I remembered of the first few seasons were - you lived a human life, died, and then were transformed into guardian white lighters. If you weren't pissed off about the big reveal, you became a white-lighter and if you were pissed off you became a dark-lighter. So that's the conversion process we're sticking with. That said, there will be little interaction with the Charmed ones. Joyce, like Hank in the previous installment, will be slightly transformed as she has interactions with her daughters.

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Joyce Summers, White-Lighter

  
Into: Feels Like Today  
2001

Joyce finished arranging the flowers Brian had sent her, sniffing delicately at the blossoms. He was so thoughtful and sweet. But he wasn't ... Joyce shook her head at such thoughts. She'd moved on from Hank. Had nearly five years ago. She'd been with other men since then, and God knew he'd moved on. She spoke weekly with his svelte Spanish secretary Sheyle for Dawn's sake. Buffy didn't even bother with the weekly calls anymore.

That alone should make her hate him. And part of her did. She shook her head and brushed her hands down her skirt. Joyce made her way into the living room, basking in the warmth of the sun hitting down on the house. She'd just sat down when she remembered she ought to have put a little more water in the vase. Joyce started to rise, her head aching. Why did it ache? She sat back down and as soon as she hit the couch, she was dead.

It didn't feel like dying when it happened. No. It felt like nothing. It happened suddenly, there wasn't any real pain - just a headache. Her spirit hadn't left the room she'd died in. The only way she knew she was dead was the fact that her flowers from Brian had wilted a bit, and the house was deathly quiet.

"Joyce," a voice she knew far too well spoke from behind her.

"Your name's not really Brian, is it?" she sighed, her fingers ghosting over the picture of her and the girls.

"No, its not," the man formerly known as Brian stepped out of the hall.

"And I'm dead, aren't I?"

"You are," Not-Brian replied. "It was an aneurism."

"Ah, natural causes. We don't get those often here in Sunnydale. Normally its a gang high on PCP," Joyce brushed away the tears thinking of her girls being on their own now.

"Joyce, do you know why I'm here?" Not-Brian asked, resting a hand gently on her shoulder.

"Besides laying in the groundwork for our post-date death match?" Joyce shrugged away from him, anger coursing through her. "You _did know _I was going to die the next day, didn't you?"

"Yes. I initiated the date so I wouldn't be a stranger when your time came to make a choice."

"A choice?" Joyce stepped back from him, her arms wrapping tightly around her.

"You're one of those very few individuals who have an innate qualitiy for compassion. You've become a mother and confidant to a group of champions for the side of good, when you could have very easily pushed away from all of them," he didn't crowd her.

"I couldn't. Well, I did - for one moment with Buffy but - I was scared and -" Joyce took a calming breath.

"And yet you still protected her and the construct with your life."

_"The construct_? You mean Dawn?" Panic flooded her, tinged slightly with anger at the mention of her youngest daughter. How could he know her Dawnie wasn't really her baby?

"Yes, the Key, and even that reaction - to protect and nurture _her_ is a sign of how perfect you are for this job."

"What job? What are you talking about?"

"Joyce Summers, you've been called to be a White-Lighter, a guardian angel of sorts to those in the supernatural communities. And I am here to guide you along that path."


	2. One: Glamorous Life

Title: Joyce Summers, White-Lighter  
Author: Jmaria  
Rating: FR-15  
Disclaimer: Joss owns dear Joyce, Spelling & Co. own the White-lighters, I own Sheyle and Malachi. (Although someone else owns his old last name.)  
Summary: There's more to her death than meets the eye. All she has to do is make the choice.  
A/N: I don't know if the Charmed ones will actually pop up in this - mainly because of my lack of knowledge on the show after season 4. Leo might, him being a White Lighter and all.

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Joyce Summers, White-Lighter

  
One: Glamorous Life  
2001

She'd just come in from watching silently over her ex-husband, running a hand through her short cropped hair. Joyce had wept for poor Hank for hours. She'd been so harsh with him every time they'd spoken since he had all but vanished from their lives the year after they'd moved to Sunnydale. Malachi, the white-lighter who had replaced Brian after she'd hurled the vase of flowers at him, had explained it all to her: Hank's sacrifice to save Buffy, the deal he'd struck with Artemis to protect her and the reason for his distance for the last three years.

She wanted more than anything to drag him by his ear to their home and _make him_ explain himself to Buffy and Dawn. But she couldn't reveal herself. None of them would accept it, and honestly, it would be too hard to explain. She didn't even look like herself anymore. Gone was the motherly body and Mom hair. Gone were the years she'd worn with pride in public, and often bemoaned privately. Gone was everything that had made her _Joyce_.

"Joyce?" Malachi, the very young White-Lighter now entrusted with her training called out to her.

"I'm not going to throw anything at you," Joyce's voice shook with emotion.

"I can understand your anger -"

"Can you? How did you die?" Joyce crossed her arms over her chest.

"In a fire. I -," Malachi bit his lip and shook his head as if to clear his mind of the painful memory of it. "A little girl was trapped in our apartment building, and I could hear her screaming. I don't know how I got to her, but I did and I pulled her out of the fire. But something happened, and I couldn't get myself back out in time. And then I woke up here, just like you did, and there was someone waiting for me to make my choice."

"To become a White-Lighter."

"And I did. Because all I could think about was helping that little girl, and how much I needed to keep on doing that kind of good."

"How long have you been doing this?" Joyce couldn't shake the feeling that he was still younger than her.

"She just celebrated her seventh birthday," Malachi smiled like a proud father. "So I guess it's been about two years. She became one of my charges. Her White-Lighter was killed in the fire, trying to save her."

"We can still die?"

"Anything can die. We're just a little harder to kill."

Malachi left her alone for a little while, and she watched as her family grieved. Her kids had done so much to save the world - had she done her part? It was this thought that had her turning back to find Malachi waiting on her.

"I couldn't do this job looking like someone's mother."

"No. Too many people mourn and remember Joyce Summers," Malachi smiled. "Just like too many people mourned Mike Zizes."

In the end, no matter the sting of Not-Brian's actions, Joyce agreed and became Jaylin White. J - for Jesse, the boy who would have been the original fourth to the Scoobies. Ay - for Anya, the girl who taught her - inadvertently, about learning to be something new. L - for Larry, because he'd died trying to help Buffy save the world. And In - for Daniel Osbourne, who through his quiet strength had once taught her how to roll with the punches.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Joyce Summers, White-Lighter  
Author: Jmaria  
Rating: FR-15  
Disclaimer: Joss owns dear Joyce, Spelling & Co. own the White-lighters, I own Sheyle and Malachi. (Although someone else owns his old last name.)  
Summary: There's more to her death than meets the eye. All she has to do is make the choice.  
A/N: Set during the season 6 finale. Also? My sneaky way of working yet another dead Buffyverse person back into the Resurrected 'Verse.

_**Joyce Summers, White-Lighter**  
Two: Fall Apart Again  
2002_

Jaylin smiled as she peeked in on where her daughters were. She wasn't supposed to, because her urge to interfere was too great. She'd already been reprimanded by the Elders more that once because of this. But technically, she was also in Sunnydale on business. How her heart ached at the thought of what that business entailed. Turning away from the sight of her two girls working together, she orbed herself back to where Malachi and Tara waited for her.

The younger blonde sat shaking, not coming quite to terms with her death. Malachi looked nervously between the two of them. It was going to be harder to shake her from her death than it had been for Jaylin.

"I'm not sure what I can do for her, Jaylin," Malachi whispered. "You fought us when we came for you, she's been sitting there since the others found the girl."

Tara sat with her knees under her cheek, her eyes staring blankly at the blood on the carpet of Jaylin's old bedroom floor - _her_ blood. Before Buffy and Xander had found Dawn staring at her body in shock and grief, Tara had been hovering around the girl. Unable to touch or comfort the girl who'd become the younger sister to all of the Scoobies, Tara hadn't been able to focus on her own circumstances. She'd wanted to protect Dawn, and her focus had been on that.

"I've got it, Mal," Jaylin smiled.

She waited while he orbed away. As soon as he was gone, she willed her appearance to change back into the skin she hadn't worn in over a year. Tara's head jerked up in surprise.

"M-mrs. Summers?"

"Hello, Tara," Joyce smiled sadly at the girl as she knelt beside her.

"Is this - is it heaven?" Tara asked.

"No, honey, it's not," Joyce sighed, setting her hands on Tara's. "It's the between."

"Between?"

"Certain people, like you and I, we get a choice when our lives come to their predestined endings."

"Predestined? I was supposed to be shot?" Tears gathered in her eyes.

"Yes," Joyce took a breath. "They've been watching your life for a long time."

"They?"

"White-lighters, like me. We're kind of like guardian angels, only slightly more hands-on. We can't interfere in predestined dates in the time-line, but in those that would upset the balance."

"They watched you?"

"Yeah, they did."

And she was still pissed at Not-Brian for that some days. Other days, like the ones when she got to peek in on Henrik and the girls, she silently thanked them. There were perks to being dead, after all.

"H-how can I leave them like this? Who'll look after Dawn? Who'll be there to rationalize and sympathize with Anya? Give disapproving looks to Spike?" Tara blinked.

"Tara, you can only mother them for so long," Jaylin brushed Tara's hair back from her face. "Sometimes, you have to let go so they can find their own way. But I know so many people who need that same guiding hand that you selflessly gave the Scoobies. I can only do so much on my own. Will you help me?"


End file.
